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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455222">tired</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyisBurning/pseuds/GallifreyisBurning'>GallifreyisBurning</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>HP Drabbles and Prompt Fics [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Azkaban, Death Eater Trials, M/M, Post-War, Pre-Relationship, Vignette, general melancholia, pre-trial</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:07:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>963</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyisBurning/pseuds/GallifreyisBurning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>A slight pressure, another body leaning against his. “I’m so fucking tired,” said Malfoy.</em>
</p><p><em>Harry leaned into the touch, grounding himself, taking in these seconds of respite before he was called away again—always, </em>always<em> needed, somewhere. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”</em></p><p>After the war, before the trials, Harry visits Draco in Azkaban.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>HP Drabbles and Prompt Fics [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011204</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>190</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>tired</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The door of the cell fell shut behind Harry with an echoing, metallic <em>clang</em>. Harry shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. He wished he’d dressed more warmly. It hadn’t exactly been balmy even before he’d reached the island, but he hadn’t accounted for how much colder it would be out here, surrounded by water and wind and unforgiving stone. Even without the Dementors, Azkaban was miserable.</p><p>Malfoy had glanced up as the cell door  opened, but he hadn’t looked surprised to see Harry standing there. He hadn’t looked angry, either, nor bitter, nor scared. As Harry observed him now, he thought that he just looked… tired. He looked as tired as Harry felt.</p><p>He was sitting on the thin mattress of a narrow metal bed, leaning against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. He wasn’t dirty or bruised, Harry was relieved to see, but the grey prison uniform hung from his overly-thin frame and his hair was lank and lifeless. </p><p>“Well?” Malfoy asked, his voice sounding rough, disused. Harry realized that he’d been watching him in silence for longer than was probably normal. Not that he knew what ‘normal’ was, in these circumstances. He didn’t have much practice in visiting former classmates in prison. “Come to see how far the mighty have fallen?” Malfoy waved a pale, bony hand in the air, motioning at himself, a sad imitation of the dramatic gestures Harry had once glared at from across a boisterous room full of students laughing and eating together. A room that Harry had last seen full of the injured, dying, and dead. “Because I have to tell you, Potter, it doesn’t seem like you’re doing that much better. You look like shit.”</p><p>Harry surprised himself with a quiet snort—an unexpected almost-laugh. “Thanks.” </p><p>“Why are you here?” </p><p>Harry shifted a bit, unsure, now that he <em>was</em> here, how to start. “To ask you why you did it,” he said, finally.</p><p>“Why I did what? Join the Death Eaters? I should think that was fairly obvious, even to you.” He tipped his head back, resting it against the damp stone wall, closing his eyes. “I’m a Malfoy. I was always going to join.” Then, acerbically, “I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter.”</p><p>“No. Why you lied. When they caught us.”</p><p>Malfoy did look at him, now. There was something behind his eyes—bitterness, maybe, or defiance. “Does it matter?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>He sighed and looked away again, his gaze returning to the bare wall across from him. “Because by then, I knew that I’d rather be dead than live in a world where he won.”</p><p>Harry was cold, and his legs ached. All of him ached. He’d run too far for too long with too little food, too little sleep, too little hope. He’d thought, maybe, that he would be able to rest, when it was done. But it wasn’t done. It felt as though it might never be done.</p><p> He sat on the mattress next to Malfoy, not bothering to gauge his reaction. He leaned against the wall, his posture echoing Malfoy’s. He was so fucking tired.</p><p>“He tortured me, after,” Malfoy said, almost conversationally but for the continued rasp of his brittle vocal chords. “I’d assumed he would kill me, but I suppose he liked having me as leverage over Father.”</p><p>“How did he know?” Harry supposed he should be more disturbed by the casual way that Malfoy referenced being tortured, but he couldn’t muster the energy.</p><p>Malfoy snorted, derisive. “The Dark Lord is—was—an accomplished Legilimens. I knew what I was doing. There were no secrets in that house. Aside from Severus’s, apparently. Which, by the way, what the fuck?”</p><p>Harry actually did laugh at that, quietly, a short burst of wry amusement. “I know, right?” </p><p>They sat quietly for a few moments. Malfoy didn’t seem to particularly mind that Harry was there, and Harry didn’t want to move. He was stiff, and sore, and tired, and this was the first time since Voldemort’s corpse had dropped anticlimactically to the ground that no one had <em>wanted</em> anything from him. “They asked me to testify,” he said, finally.</p><p>“Testify?”</p><p>“At the trials— the Death Eater trials. I wanted to talk to you first. I just…I dunno. I needed to know why you saved us.”</p><p>From the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy give a slight nod. “Will I be staying here, do you think?”</p><p>Harry exhaled. “I doubt it. You didn’t really… do much, by all accounts. Other than sixth year, but you weren’t of age, so. And I’m going to tell them, y’know, how you helped us. When you lied.”</p><p>Silence. “Why?”</p><p>Harry closed his eyes. “I dunno. Because you didn’t do anything worse than the people who turned a blind eye to save themselves, when it came down to it. Because if we lock up everyone who went along with Voldemort, there won’t be enough of us left to even begin to clean this mess up. Because I didn’t save your life just for it to be chucked away again.” A pause. “Because I’ve seen evil, and you’re not it.”</p><p>More silence. Then, quietly, “Thank you.”</p><p>Harry nodded, not opening his eyes.</p><p>“Is it any better out there now?” Malfoy asked.</p><p>Harry shrugged noncommittally. “A bit. Not really. Less people dying, which is good. But everything’s still a bit of a wreck, and there aren’t enough people to put it back together.” </p><p>Silence again. It was oddly comfortable. </p><p>A slight pressure, another body leaning against his. “I’m so fucking tired,” said Malfoy.</p><p>Harry leaned into the touch, grounding himself, taking in these seconds of respite before he was called away again—always, <em>always</em> needed, somewhere. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazybutgood">crazybutgood</a> for the quick beta work!</p><p>This was just one of those ideas that comes at 2 am when you should've been asleep hours ago and your brain is like "okay but hear me out—" </p><p>Comments and kudos are love; come say hi on <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gallifrey1sburning">tumblr</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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